Conventionally, a semiconductor light emitting device such as a light emitting diode and so on is constructed so that a bonding metal layer, a contact metal (a joint metal layer) and a semiconductor layer (a contact layer, a lower current spreading layer, a light emitting layer, an upper current spreading layer and a contact layer in this order from the lowest layer) are laminated in this order from the lowest layer on a main surface of a substrate at a rear face of which a rear face electrode is formed, and a bonding pad is provided on the semiconductor layer.
As a method for manufacturing such the semiconductor light emitting device, a method is known that after the semiconductor layer formed on a substrate of GaAs system, for example, by epitaxially growing the contact layer, the lower current spreading layer, the light emitting layer, the upper current spreading layer and the contact layer in this order from the lowest layer are bonded to the substrate via the joint metal layer and the bonding metal layer, the substrate of GaAs system is removed, the bonding pad is formed on the contact layer connected to the upper current spreading layer, and the rear face electrode is formed at the rear face of the substrate.
Then, using a laser dicing method, for example, this is separated into a plurality of the chip-shaped semiconductor light emitting devices. At the time of separating, as a result that a mechanical force heading upward is given to the semiconductor layer and so on, the damage and peeling off of the film may possibly occur in the semiconductor layer and so on. If the damage occurs in the semiconductor layer, for example, there is a case that the light emitting area of the semiconductor light emitting device decreases and the light emitting efficiency decreases.
Consequently, as a method to prevent the damage and peeling off of the film from occurring in the semiconductor layer and so on, a method is known that from a GaAs layer formed on a Si substrate, the epitaxial GaAs layer in the vicinity of the device boundary is selectively removed to form a dicing street. A method for manufacturing a semiconductor light emitting device of this kind is disclosed in JP 2-125637.
However, in the method for manufacturing the semiconductor light emitting device of this kind, even if the dicing street is formed and passivation films are formed on the surface of the semiconductor layer and at the side face of the joint metal layer before separating into the chip-shaped semiconductor light emitting devices, as a result that a mechanical force heading upward remains to be given to the passivation film and so on at the time of separating into the chip shaped semiconductor light emitting devices, peeling off of the film may possibly occur in the passivation film at the side face of the joint metal layer. As a result, the side face of the joint metal layer may possibly expose and be corroded.